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A new type of sponge-tipped bullet introduced in East Jerusalem last summer has broken arms, fractured faces, destroyed eyesight and killed a teenager. Now a similar projectile is slated for use against Palestinians in the West Bank. Following the introduction last summer of a new type of sponge-tipped bullet into the Israel Police’s arsenal, the Israeli army is now set to begin using a similar projectile in order to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank, according to Ynet [Heb]. The new bullets will be phased in during the coming weeks as a pilot, following which they will be distributed among…

Ahead of Jerusalem Day 2015, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) released a factsheet detailing the disparities between the city's Jewish and Palestinian residents and the systemic discrimination in East Jerusalem. The following infographic accompanies the report. Read more here.

More than one quarter of Jerusalem's Palestinian residents live behind the concrete separation barrier; Israel has revoked the residency of over 14,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites since 'reunifying' the city in 1967, including 107 last year alone. Three-quarters of East Jerusalem’s 300,200 Palestinian residents live below the poverty line, including 83.9 percent of children, according to a new report published by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).The state of affairs is attributed, in large part, to a lack of investment by the state as well as the fact that more than 25 percent of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents live on the…

Police in Israel recently began using a new type of sponge-tipped bullets that cause more extreme bodily harm, including the death of one teenager last year. Social TV interviews Atty. Anne Sucui of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), who explains that the Israel Police attempted to hide changes to its procedures from the public. So ACRI published the documents itself. Related: 'Autopsy contradicts police, shows Palestinian teen was shot in head' PHOTO: Activestills photographer shot in face with sponge-tipped bullet

High Court rejects petition calling for an end to racial profiling against Arabs at Ben-Gurion Airport, yet refuses to make a principled ruling on the policy as a whole. Israel's High Court of Justice rejected a petition by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), demanding an end to racial profiling at Ben-Gurion Airport on Wednesday. The petition — which the Association for Civil Rights in Israel filed in 2007 against the Shin Bet, the Transportation Ministry and the Israel Airports Authority — sought to eliminate the category of "Arab nationality" as a criteria for conducting special security checks in the…

Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem have been suffering from a severe water crisis for 10 months. Israel’s High Court of Justice on Monday ordered the state to find a solution to the severe lack of running water in four East Jerusalem neighborhoods located beyond the separation barrier. Despite their location within territory that Israel unilaterally annexed to its capital, the Palestinian neighborhoods of Ras Shehada, Ras Khamis, Dahyat A’salam and the Shuafat Refugee Camp have been suffering from a severe water crisis since last March, when residents went three weeks without any water supply. PHOTOS: Weeks without water in East Jerusalem They…

Following media reports and the intervention of two members of Knesset, the Israel Prison Service provided African asylum seekers with heating pads, which one asylum seeker says are inadequate. As temperatures drop below zero, Tel Aviv residents protest conditions at the Holot detention facility. By Yael Marom Two Israeli refugee rights organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice on Sunday, demanding that the State provide bedroom heaters for asylum seekers imprisoned in the “Holot” detention facility. “Despite the freezing cold the Israel Prison Service, which operates ‘Holot,’ is not providing or installing electric heaters, air conditioners or radiators in the…

A new report maps out the two separate legal systems in the occupied territories — one for Jews and one for Arabs. At a launch event for the report, senior jurists showed up and argued it's not their fault whatsoever. Former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner asked: What can we do? The answer: A lot. (Translated from Hebrew by Ofer Neiman) There was something mesmerizing about listening to representatives of the legal establishment speak at a conference held by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) last week. Mesmerizing and terrifying. The hardest thing was hearing Dalia Dorner —…

One of the most prominent and disturbing characteristics of Israeli military rule in the West Bank is the creation and development of an official and institutionalized legal regime of two separate legal systems, on an ethnic-national basis. The long-standing residence of citizens of the State of Israel, the occupying power, in settlements at the heart of the occupied territory – which contravenes international law in and of itself – has led to systematic discrimination that is anchored in legislation and rulings that affect every aspect in the lives of Palestinian residents of the West Bank. This dual system of law…

'In effect, from this day forward, Arab Knesset members will be subject to the political judgements of the Jewish majority,' MK Zoabi's attorneys say. The High Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected MK Haneen Zoabi's appeal to overturn her six-month suspension from parliamentary discussions for a political opinion she expressed on the radio in June. As I reported yesterday, in deliberating her petition, the justices spent more time interpreting and judging Zoabi's politics than whether the Knesset had the right to suspend her in the first place. In its decision (Hebrew), the justices essentially chose "not to interfere" with the…

Two new videos catch a police 'skunk' truck spraying East Jerusalem neighborhoods with foul-smelling liquid. The smell was so bad that 4,500 students had to stay home from school. The "skunk" trucks drives slowly through the neighborhood. It is evening, and there is no evidence of clashes in the area. The truck proceeds slowly, sprays putrid-smelling water on a nearby building, continues on and shoots once again. When it's all over, the truck has tainted schools, homes, streets - entire neighborhoods - with its unbearable stink. Just like that. Two videos that were filmed this past week by Palestinian residents…

Legal advocates decry Israeli policies toward migrant workers as inhumane and claim that they violate the laborers’ human right to family. Maris Delusong, a 36-year-old caregiver from the Philippines, is alone at Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station. She stops at a sale rack outside a clothing store. She looks at the baby clothes, pulls a pink onesie off the rack and runs her fingers over the soft fabric. Her face is sad as she puts the outfit back and moves along. “It’s hard to be alone,” Delusong says. She found herself drawn to the baby clothes, she says, because “I…

Israel denies Bedouin citizens basic services in life but claims them as civilians when they die. Over 400 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its current military operation in Gaza. According to the United Nations, approximately three-quarters of Gaza’s dead are civilians; many are children. In Israel, two civilians have been killed. One was a Bedouin, the 32-year-old Oudi Lafi al-Waj, who lived in an unrecognized village in the Negev (Naqab) desert, near Dimona. Several Bedouin children have also been injured by rocket fire since Israel began “Operation Protective Edge.” Bedouin villages do not have air raid sirens, nor…

About +972 Magazine

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. It was launched in August 2010, resulting from a merger of a number of popular English-language blogs dealing with life and politics in Israel and Palestine.

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. It was launched in August 2010, resulting from a merger of a number of popular English-language blogs dealing with life and politics in Israel and Palestine.